


Road to You

by KasmiKassim



Series: Crossing Chances [2]
Category: Figure Skating RPF
Genre: Angst, Coming of Age, Drama, Friendship/Love, Friendzone, Growing Up, M/M, Multi, One-Sided Attraction, Puberty, Slash, Third Wheels
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-04-08
Updated: 2018-04-20
Packaged: 2019-04-20 01:46:41
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 3
Words: 6,630
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14250429
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/KasmiKassim/pseuds/KasmiKassim
Summary: No one had told him that moving up to Seniors would make him cry like a child all over again.Starting in one dark night in Boston, Shoma watches the unnamed take shape, illuminating a path to a goal he never dared to have.





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> This is a shameless spinoff of my previous fic [ Meet Me on the Bridge](https://archiveofourown.org/works/13925316/chapters/32050998). Of course the one-part vignette spun out of control, again.

**_Road to You_ **

**_By Kasmi Kassim_ **

**_Part 1_ **

 

 

Shoma hates Boston.

It’s too wide, too open, too gray. Its blocks are dirty and long, and identically ugly. And the buildings. Gods, the buildings. They empty out as soon as darkness falls, like a tidal wave leaving scurrying creatures behind. What’s left is a skeleton city, hushed and haunted.

He looks out the window. Bloodshot eyes blink at him, sad and large and childlike, and he slaps a hand over them. Under the shadow of his hand, he can see barren sidewalks lit by stark orange streetlamps. An occasional car screeches by, only to fade into darkness again.

It’s a lonely place. America.

He glances at the clock. 12:23 a.m. He should be deep in a REM cycle by now.

The chill of the glass seeps into his skin, sending a shiver up his neck. He leaves the window and swings his arms, does a few squats, paces a little to stir up the air with his movements. It feels like wading in quicksand, and he eventually slows, dragged down by the stillness of the hour.

And the federation couldn’t even bother to give him a separate bed.

He picks up his phone from the offending bed. A mobile game blinks invitingly for another play session, and he accepts. Bright candy colors pop up onto the screen, incongruently garish in the warmth of the room, and he turns up the volume while he’s at it, chasing away the echoing silence of the crowd. He doesn’t need them. Unlike his missing roommate, Shoma had never had a problem with solitude.

It’s harder though, when disappointment comes, because when he’s the only one he performs for, he has no one that can take the hurt away.

Maybe Yuzu is onto something, when he leans on others to lift him up.

Quite literally, in this case, because when the door rattles at last and Shoma flies across the room to open it, Yuzu is hanging off of Javi’s neck, greeting Shoma with a tired “sorry” and sliding to the floor.

Before Shoma can react, Javi scoops him up and sweeps into the room. He always knows what to do, how to make everything better. It’s hard not to like him. And he imagines that, for someone like Yuzu, it’s hard not to love him.

Javi arranges Yuzu’s limbs on the bed, tending to him like a knight. It’s a rare sight these days, Yuzu letting someone see him so vulnerable. Anyone besides Javi.

Shoma isn’t sure what that means.

He doesn’t remember when their dynamic had shifted. He remembers summer days of Yuzu chasing him with a forgotten backpack, playing with his hair while humming on the bus. The air had smelled sweet, buzzing with the call of cicadas. Yuzu had been twice his height, but in retrospect, he was still a child himself.

But then they met again, and Yuzu was of another world. Blitzing like a hurricane, he was here one moment and gone the next, too busy to give more than a passing smile, a benevolent pat of the head, before storming off like a shooting star with a medal around his neck.

And now, Shoma isn’t sure what world Yuzu belongs to, or what world Shoma has entered. Yuzu no longer brushes by with a brisk headshake when Shoma finds him crying behind the vending machine. He pushes on his eyes, laughing with a wet “sorry” as Shoma shields him from view and hands him a tissue box.

Shoma isn’t sure which of them it is that has changed.

He isn’t sure what he was expecting when he moved up to Seniors, but it wasn’t the sight of Hanyu Yuzuru lying lifeless on the bed, staring at the ceiling as if counting stars in a distant galaxy.

“Yuzu,” he calls.

He doesn’t know how to react to this vulnerable display. But he does know what it’s like to sink into his own universe and never want to leave again. What it’s like to need someone to knock on the other side of the wall, break it down and drag him out gasping and shaking, anchor him until he finds his footing again.

And Yuzu answers. He struggles, but answers.

Watery eyes turn to Shoma, and react to whatever face Shoma is making, because Yuzu attempts a crumpled smile. “It’s over,” he says, and it’s like uttered defeat. “I’ve had enough.”

Shoma wants to cry.

It’s Javi that saves him, interjecting with forced cheer as he straightens from unlacing Yuzu’s shoes. Shoma scurries to his side to help take off Yuzu’s jacket, and Javi talks all the while, easy and smooth, and Shoma wonders if Yuzu hears any of it. Whether, caught in the crossfire of lexis and grammar and inflection, he hears the rolls and dips of his tender words, or sees the hills and slopes in the landscape of his language. Whether he sees how Javi doesn’t leave, and instead sits waiting to be dismissed.

Shoma discreetly powers up his translation app, and types in an offer to switch rooms for the night.

Before he can show it to Javi, Yuzu calls – “Shoma, help me up?” – so he abandons his phone and reaches around Yuzu, who straightens with the look of a man bracing for a freefall into melted ice. Shoma slinks to the wall and looks away as soft English words fill the room.

They’re both idiots.

Javi leaves with a brave smile, and Yuzu sends him off with one to match, and then bows over and wails into his pillow.

Shoma stands at the wall, clutching his phone.

No one had warned him of this. No one had told him that he would fall so terribly and limp to finish a devastating performance while fighting to breathe. No one had told him that moving up to Seniors would make him cry like a child all over again. No one had told him that he would have to witness open heartbreak because the top two seniors in his field could not understand what love looked like in another language.

No one had told him that he would have to pick up all the pieces.

He’s not sure how much he’s allowed to see, how much he’s allowed to hear. He’s not sure how much Yuzu has changed since their boyhood days. But he has a split second to decide. He gambles.

Detaching from the wall, he climbs the bed where Yuzu is hacking sobs onto his lap as if trying to twist out every last drop of grief from his lungs. Shoma kneels, hooks a tentative arm around a hunched back. Yuzu cries on, and Shoma chews on his lip, but then cold fingers wrap tight around his own, clinging like a lifeline in a terrible world he’d crashed into.

This is definitely new. This trust.

Shoma answers by tightening his fingers in return. He drapes himself over Yuzu’s back like a little blanket, resting his cheek on the back of his neck.

He has no words that will make Yuzu’s hurts go away. But he can at least keep him warm.

Flexing to match the grip climbing up his arms, he watches his reflection blink sadly from the window.

,

,

“Drink.”

Yuzu obediently downs half of the glass. He then blinks up at where Shoma stands unmoving before him.

“Finish.” Shoma shifts. “You’re gonna have a headache tomorrow from how much you cried.”

Apparently Yuzu finds Shoma’s occasional bursts of forwardness either adorable or hilarious, because he laughs into his glass. But he drains the rest, so Shoma doesn’t complain.

Yuzu watches Shoma scuttle about the room, getting ready for sleep. He looks like a beached seacreature, breathing shallow and flat against the bed, with dark hair plastered stark on his face. His eyes glimmer gold in the lamplight, emotions swimming near the surface, and Shoma is afraid to speak for fear of them breaking them out again. Yuzu has cried too much already.

When at last Shoma comes to bed, Yuzu wordlessly lifts the blanket to help him climb in. He lets Shoma push his limbs around under the covers, because he jerks awake at night, then frets about poking Shoma awake, then Shoma feels nervous about it, and it’s a loss for everyone because Shoma sleeps like a log regardless. For Yuzu’s peace of mind, Shoma is considering getting him a pressure blanket.

Shoma settles a hand width’s distance as Yuzu watches with glassy eyes. He is wearily quiet, and Shoma wants to reach out to caress his temple, just enough to offer something heavy and warm to blanket the pain, maybe soften the buzz of the thoughts in that brain. Instead he whispers, “you okay?”

Yuzu blinks slowly. Then he sucks in a shuddering breath, and rolls slowly onto his back. “I should be asking you that.” He nods a little to himself, determined. He then glances at Shoma with a smile that looks more like gritted teeth. “You okay, Shoma?”

Shoma thins his lips. Nothing is okay, but saying that to Yuzu’s brittle smile feels like losing again. He’s already lost his shot at a podium; he’s not going to throw away his pride as a Senior too. He takes a determined breath of his own. “I’m okay.”

Yuzu’s eyes search Shoma’s face, and Shoma slides deeper under the blanket, feeling naked. He doesn’t have the words to explain anyway. The dizziness of the fall, the numbness in legs that refused to move. How endless the music seemed. How, with each ragged breath, the arena grew darker around the terrifying expanse of blinding ice.

The worst part is Mihoko’s smile afterwards. He used to absorb her comforts once, but now he sees how she aches on his behalf, and it’s a terrible thing. He wants to scoop that compassion from her heart and take it away, lock it inside himself, so he doesn’t have to see his pain on other people. His own tears are enough. 

Yuzu doesn’t press the issue. Perhaps he also knows that there are no words that can take the hurt away. Instead, long fingers encase Shoma’s under the covers.

“Next year,” he whispers. “You and me both.”

Shoma squeezes his answer.

The night is unchanged, but the air in the room feels lighter somehow, with Yuzu acknowledging the unspoken. Unlike the explosive grief Shoma had unwittingly witnessed half hour ago, what now lies between them is something shared, something they carry together onward. It may not be easy, but it’s familiar, and Shoma feels more sure-footed. He lets his thoughts drift into fuzzy warmth.

Yuzu shifts against him, and Shoma starts with a sleepy sound.

“No, no, sleep, I’ll just,” Yuzu whispers, leaning against Shoma to reach for the lamp. Shoma scrambles with an incoherent murmur, and flails until he hits the lamp switch. Yuzu drops back onto the bed beside him, and the room darkens, punctured by a square of light on the wall.

Shoma blinks at it. He thought America went dark at night. Maybe it’s just Boston.

“Sorry,” Yuzu murmurs beside him.

Shoma traces the source of light to the window. “Why?”

“Just…everything.”

Shoma frowns. It feels familiar, this aborted courage. The rush of winds before turning for a jump, gliding on a knife edge backwards before throwing himself blind into a landing unseen. The slams against joints that jar his bones for weeks after.

But grasping at the uneasy silence in the room, he wonders if the fear was what made him crash today. And if he can’t outrun the fear, whether he might turn around and not just face it head on, but attack it with a vengeance of his own.

“You keep apologizing,” he says carefully, “and I don’t know why.”

Yuzu stills beside him.

“If you mean something else by it,” Shoma pushes, because he doesn’t know how to make this polite. Perhaps he’s aided by the cover of darkness, making him feel brave. “Just say it.”

Yuzu makes a wet noise, something close to laughter. “You’re…pretty literal, aren’t you.”

Maybe Yuzu also isn’t sure how much Shoma had changed from that giggling child. It’s a strange thing to realize.

“I was never smart enough to pick up hints.” Shoma chews on his lip, trying to get his words in order. “I can’t guess things. It’s exhausting, and people misunderstand anyway.”

Silence stretches between them, but it’s no longer oppressive. It feels warm.

Yuzu gives a great sigh, light and airy. “I wish,” he says, casually, and his voice thickens. “I hope,” he whispers, and his words die away.

Shoma turns to his side. His eyes slowly adjust to darkness, and he reaches around the lump of the blanket that is Yuzu, and squeezes as best he can. Yuzu grasps his wrist and pulls it under the blanket. His belly is warm.

Their hands are messily tangled, like all those times that Yuzu had guided Shoma through choreography, shielded him through bustling crowds, helped him up onto the bus. Except this time it’s Shoma anchoring Yuzu in his descent into this terrible world, keeping him from marooning in lonely silence, and – Shoma’s eyes adjust to darkness, and Yuzu’s eyes are squeezed shut, brows knotted in open grief, teeth biting down voiceless sobs into his fist.

Shoma’s chest hurts.

He reaches without thinking. Like he used to do for his brother, he presses a thumb between furrowed brows, gently smoothening them apart.

Yuzu opens his eyes, and Shoma doesn’t know what to do with the tumbling pain in them. He doesn’t know what it’s like to let go of years of love, or to mourn the death of something that never got to live. He doesn’t know how many nights of tears it will take for Yuzu to stop hurting. He knows nothing of these things, but he knew nothing of being in Seniors either.

He had no choice but to throw himself blind onto that terrible ice and hope to come out alive at the other end. He fell, and it hurt, but it was the only way.

“It will get better,” he whispers.

He can’t smile, because that would be a lie. But he has to believe, for Yuzu’s sake, that this pain will pass. He presses his thumb all the way along Yuzu’s brow. “It will be better in the morning.”

Perhaps it’s overstepping, but he can’t think of that right now. He had never been a multitasker. He can only do one thing at a time, and often badly at that, so he puts one foot in front of the other in this uncertain path. He’s a Senior now, and Yuzu needs him to be strong for him. Yuzu who has no younger sibling and is hung up on being the perfect senpai. Yuzu who is reckless and childish and borderline impolite to his seniors, but always treated Shoma like precious treasure. Yuzu who pretends to be invincible until he dissolves in Javi’s arms. Yuzu who has given up his Javi and is trying to bury years of love tonight while Shoma watches.

It’s a stupid idea, but if Yuzu insists on martyring himself, at least Shoma can be a gentle place to land when Yuzu breaks out of his lonely universe, hold down the world for him a little while.

Yuzu’s fingers clench one last time, and he lets go of his hand. He sucks in a shaky breath. “Sorry,” he chokes, tripping over his sobs. “I’m really sorry.”

Shoma chews on his lip, considering what to say. He’s not okay. But Yuzu needs him to be, so he covers Yuzu’s eyes with his hand. “Don’t think about me right now,” he whispers. “Sleep.”

Yuzu quietens under his hand. Shoma slowly wiggles his fingers to wipe freshly falling tears.

Perhaps he should have asked for a separate room. But if he had, Yuzu would be crying alone, so Shoma can’t really complain. He looks out the window and watches a few lonely windows blink from distant skyscrapers, like beacons in the night.

,

,

**To Be Continued**


	2. Chapter 2

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you so much for kudos and comments!

 

**_Road to You_ **

**_By Kasmi Kassim_ **

**_Part 2_ **

**_,_ **

**_,_ **

Helsinki is a beautiful, terrible place.

Colorful buildings remind Shoma of cardboard cutouts from his childhood snack bags. Architectural wonders look like Russian churches (they apparently weren’t churches), and streets remind him of the furniture catalogues he once saw his mom flipping through. Everything is confusing and Shoma buzzes with the chaos of it. He imagines that it’s a visual nightmare for finnicky control freaks though, like the black matchstick stretching at his side.

“Do you think,” he says to said matchstick, “maybe you and Javi could still have a communication problem?”

He is rewarded with the Demon Eyes ™. “What.”

It’s not a new thought. But Shoma’s emboldened by the colorful spontaneity around him, as ludicrous as the laughter in his long program music (which, he was told, would suit him horribly, and he would show ‘em because no one insulted Mihoko like that). He feels open to unnamed emotions, unplanned changes, mismatched pieces falling together.

“Maybe you should try again,” he says easily, and Yuzu stares as if Shoma has gone through second puberty. Yuzu surely had, or something, because his perpetual baby face has angled over the year, and his eyes are dark and sizzling.

“This is…unlike you,” he says.

“I know you take care of me.” Shoma is almost surprised at how not intimidated he is. “I appreciate that. You know I do. But I don’t want,” he waves at the distance between Yuzu and Javi. “I don’t want to be the cause of this.”

“I hang out with you because I like tormenting you.” Yuzu refuses to look.

“And,” Shoma plows on, “I don’t want to be your excuse either.”

That gets Yuzu’s attention, because he stops moving. Shoma wonders who he thinks he’s fooling. The two idiots fall into each other’s side like planets in orbit, intimacy lingering in every touch and whisper, and it’s not for lack of trying on Shoma’s part that the team gossips of an affair.

“I know you two have a history,” he pacifies. “But I think maybe, it got a little twisted? Somewhere along the way.”

Yuzu leans back on his hands to stare at Shoma with narrowed eyes, and Shoma can see what foreigners see in him. Shoma himself is often called exotic by his own, and Yuzu is his mirror opposite. It becomes easier to understand Yuzu’s attachment to Javi then. Javi, who treats Yuzu like a bratty kid instead of a fascinating specimen. Javi, World Champion and trailblazer, who stands shoulder to shoulder with Yuzu without needing him as a ticket to fame. Javi, who holds Yuzu as if shielding him from the world.

It twists something in his chest, so he skips to the point. “He just might return your feelings.”

“No.” Yuzu sounds like he’s pulling teeth. “He made himself clear. Believe me, I tried.”

“But your English kinda sucks.”

At this Yuzu throws his head back and laughs, because of course he finds this hilarious. Shoma wants to kick his ankles apart a little.

Yuzu folds his body in half and peers from behind his kneecap like a cat. “This is unlike you,” he repeats. “You don’t …care about things like this.”

To that Shoma stares longer than appropriate, because how is he supposed to answer such stupidity. “I… care about you being happy?”

Yuzu stills, looking like someone had kicked him in the chest. Shoma eyes Yuzu’s bag in case he needs to dive for an inhaler. Unless time away in Canada magically fixed his asthma too.

Then Yuzu snaps up. “It’s done,” he says, final. “Those days are gone.” He resumes stretching, eyes turning scary again.

Shoma should respect that. He would have believed it too, perhaps a year ago.

But Yuzu isn’t the only one who has changed since Boston. Shoma has changed too, and he knows his own weakness when he sees it. And he feels bold today. Perhaps it’s Helsinki. Perhaps it’s Loco. Perhaps it’s seeing that beneath his Demon Eyes ™ is still that boy who was too shy to ask out his crush and shouted it during gala practice, just to prove to himself that he could.

Shoma breathes. The air feels light and new, the ground steady beneath his feet, and he oversteps with no remorse. It now feels like just stepping.

“That’s unlike you.” He turns away from Yuzu to stretch. “The Yuzu I grew up with was scared too, but he didn’t run away.”

He can hear Yuzu stop moving behind him. Shoma gets up, saying something about needing to watch the others skate.

It’s not a lie.

He watches, steeling himself against competition. The key is to enter so many competitions that they start to feel like practice. Now they all bleed together, practice and competition alike, and he can’t quite remember whether he’s in Russia right now, or France.

“Finland,” Mihoko elbows him. “Focus.”

It’s easier said than done, when he sees Yuzu fall apart.

“Was it my fault?” he asks quietly in the hotel elevator after they have escaped the press.

Yuzu blinks up from his glare. “No, it’s mine.” He punches the floor button and loops an arm around Shoma’s shoulder. “You did great! I’m so proud.”

He’s scrunching up his nose, and Shoma can’t help but mirror the smile. “I didn’t think I could do it.”

He’s not sure when this started, Yuzu praising him and Shoma verbally replaying the soundtrack of his mind during the performance. He doesn’t usually think aloud, but Yuzu is a surprisingly good listener; with him as a sounding board, Shoma chews through his thoughts and articulates them into press-ready format. Yuzu smiles through it, and by the time Shoma comes to himself, they’re standing before his hotel room and Yuzu is demanding a kiss for his knightly escort. Shoma does kick his foot this time.

“Wedding pose, then!”

Shoma scowls. “Only if you get a medal.”

“Oh ho ho!” Yuzu laughs. “Is that a challenge?”

“Can you meet it?” Shoma looks up, hopeful and daring and uncertain, and Yuzu understands. He smirks, joy and mischief and oh, it’s little Yuzu all over again.

“I’ll meet you at the top.”

“You’re in fifth place,” Shoma says incredulous, and cringes.

Yuzu laughs at Shoma’s expense all the way to his room. “I guess I’ll have to break a record, then!”

He does.

Shoma stares, because what the hell.

“He’s a monster,” whistles someone from the side, and Shoma knows, he’s always known, thank you very much.

“I can’t afford to lose,” Yuzu had said softly one hot summer day as they stood shoulder to shoulder in a crowded Starbucks. Shoma had been chosen to do a drink run for the ice show cast, and Yuzu had come along to help. He had looked down at the tray of drinks as if looking at buried dreams. “It’s all I have left.”

Shoma likes winning too. But seeing Yuzu kick off the ice and throw himself into the air, swathed in the hue of lapping waters and twilight stars, Shoma remembers Yuzu biting down silent sobs in a lonely hotel and is glad for the ice on Yuzu’s behalf.

Mihoko glances at him, but he watches on. He had reminded Yuzu of his score because he wanted Yuzu to prove him wrong, once again rise invincible. And Yuzu had answered. He always answers.

Shoma isn’t going to run away either.

It’s almost offensive how beautiful he is, in his deepwater ombre and starlit crystals. Yuzu curls abstract, and amorphous beauty blooms on the ice as he soars like a mermaid meeting heaven and sea. At the end of it all, the arena’s roars wash the waters away, and in the remains stands Yuzu, triumphant with a conquerer’s fist.

Shoma quietly resumes stretching.

He’s not going to beat Yuzu. He’s going to beat that frightened boy in that Boston rink, and prove himself a rightful Senior. And maybe, if he tries hard enough, he can keep Yuzu company in that lonely height.

Those days are gone, Yuzu had said with darkened eyes, and Shoma begins to understand that maybe, losing can sometimes lead to strength.

“You have scary eyes too,” Satoko had laughed after an interview where his sleepy face was apparently a topic worth discussing. “You should see you when you’re focused!”

“Good thing I’m never focused, then,” he had replied in good humor.

Well, he’s focused now.

The arena’s roar dulls in his ears. He sinks into himself; out here on the ice, he can be as alone as he wants. He digs in his toe pick, tightens his swings. Like the angles of his jaw and the look in Yuzu’s eyes, he sharpens, and thinks maybe, part of becoming an adult is the sharpening of focus, the narrowing and deepening of the few things that truly matter.

Mihoko shrieks when he’s done.

“I did my best,” he murmurs as they await the scores. “I did my best,” he repeats, over and over, because he needs to hear it. It’s startling how much he needs to hear it.

He doesn’t remember when this started, the idea that Yuzu was remotely possible to beat. It’s like a punch to the gut, how breathlessly he wants to stand on equal heights with Yuzu, look him in the eye, and say: I am your equal. See me.

It might have begun that night in Boston, perhaps. He tries not to think of hunched shoulders and shuddering sobs. He closes his eyes, breathes in, listens for the score.

“Shoma’s performances have matured so much this past year or two,” Mai had said on their shared interview. “So much more depth! What’s the reason?”

“There isn’t really a reason,” he had answered evenly.

“Just a result of practice?” she had eyed him, because apparently teenagers didn’t skate like he did. “Just because you train so much?”

“I guess.” Shoma had smiled at the camera. “What else could it be?”

Now he’s starting to have an idea, but. He’s not there yet. Not quite yet.

Yuzu leaps to embrace him backstage. “You’re so scary!” He laughs. “I thought you might beat me!”

An impossible dream, but now it comes into focus with breathless clarity. Shoma laughs as Yuzu frets, and easily agrees with his complaints. He isn’t quite sure yet what he wants, but it’s starting to take form.

Linking his arm to Yuzu’s expectant one to see the idiot laugh like a donkey, Shoma spares a compassionate thought for Javi, and begins to formulate his plan for improvement. And when he sees Yuzu weave his way through the press to put his medal around Javi’s neck, Shoma allows himself an eye roll, but sneaks out of view nonetheless.

He does start to have an idea of what he wants. But more than that, he wants Yuzu to be happy, and that is not a lie.

,

,

**_To Be Continued_ **


	3. Chapter 3

****

**_Road to You_ **

**_By Kasmi Kassim_ **

**_Part 3_ **

**_,_ **

**_,_ **

Pyeongchang is biting cold. But it also feels like home.

Perhaps it’s the tightness of the crowd, the jab of elbows among strangers. Perhaps it’s that, unlike western cities, Pyeongchang knows how to do convenience right. Midnight food deliveries, 24-hour stores. Perhaps it’s the sea of black hair, crescent moon eyes, clear-cut syllables. It’s homecoming, and he feels heady from how high he had soared for it.

“Still, you won’t try to beat him, right?” his brother had asked, half joke and half worry. “Please don’t break yourself more than you already have.”

Because superior stamina is all Shoma has when it comes to possibly beating the king. Youth, and the abuses it can take. Shoma had only laughed and ruffled his hair, and his brother had bitten his tongue. Shoma sometimes forgot that the boy was older than Shoma himself had been when he found out about Yuzu’s mad crush.

“Now or never, Itsuki.”

His brother had sighed, defeated. “You grownups are so weird.”

So yes, just as he had been at that age.

,

,

> Hey Shoma, have you seen Javi? He won’t answer my texts.

< No. Did you fight?

> Why would you think that?

> okay well maybe sorta but I was trying to apologize and he won’t answer

> I can hear you judging me. Stop it. I’m older than you!

< Did you check his room?

> Yes!

< Maybe he’s out eating with the Americans?

> I checked, he’s not

> Do you think he’s in trouble

< What trouble?

> maybe he got drunk and slipped and had a concussion or

< No.

> maybe he fell and broke something or

< Stop.

< I remember passing by some athletes at the hotel bar. Maybe check that?

> …isn’t that where people go to hook up

< …I don’t know?

< Please just go check the bar.

> okay but I’m blaming you if I see him with a girl

< I thought you were over him?

> …

< It’s on the 3rd floor.

> thanks

,

,

> Are you sleeping?

Shoma debates ignoring the blue light between the sheets. But only one person is neurotic enough to text him the night before the long program, and what choice does Shoma have, really.

< What’s going on?

> Javi came to my room

< Are you okay?

> no

> no

> sorry

Yuzu’s room is unlit. Twinkling night lights pour in through the window instead, silver and violet trickling down Yuzu’s body as it stands unmoving at the door. Shoma squints at his shadowed face.

“Can I come in?”

“What.” Yuzu’s voice cracks. “How.”

Shoma steps in and pulls the door shut. “What happened?”

Shoulders rise and fall. “It's over. I sent him away.” A hysterical laugh. “He tried, and I didn’t let him.”

“Why?”

“Because!” Yuzu whirls to march to the window, getting as far as the bedside before dropping to a crouch. “Because.”

Shoma follows and drops carefully to a knee beside him. He wraps an arm around Yuzu’s hunched back, narrower than he remembers (or was it Shoma that had grown?), and Yuzu curls even smaller under his touch.

“I tried so hard, Shoma.”

Shoma squeezes. “I know.”

Yuzu sucks in a shuddering breath. “I thought it was fine, it’s over, I thought – then he kisses me and then,” he laughs, broken. “He says he didn’t mean it, but then says he did, and he’s drinking with a girl and then he comes to say he loves me and,” he screams hoarsely into his hands, “why does he do this?”

Shoma tightens his hold. Yuzu convulsively leans in sideways.

“You’re the reigning Japanese champion,” an interviewer had said on air before Nationals. “How do you feel about this year?”

“Please don’t count last year,” Shoma had said. “There isn’t a single part of me that thinks I won there. Hanyu is still the champion.”

And it was true. He won for the second time, with Yuzu yet missing from competition. And Yuzu is still the champion, because this is not how Shoma wins things.  

He looks at Yuzu’s hair against his neck, bony shoulders encased in his arm. This was what he had soared for, twisting his wings and breaking his feathers. This was the blood on his knuckles, the tears in locker rooms, the sleepless nights under foreign stars. He had wanted to reach Yuzu while he stood waiting with outstretched arms, happy and healthy and whole. He had wanted, desperately. But not like this.

“He loves you,” he says, every word jabbing his chest. “You know that.”

Yuzu springs to his feet. “Then why didn’t he fight for me?” He shouts, turning against the window to face Shoma. “All these years, I tried so hard, I just.” He raises a sleeved arm. “Why didn’t he try?” his voice trails into silent sobs.

Shoma can choose not to answer this. He can choose to be little Shoma who doesn’t know how to give comfort. Let Yuzu reap what he has sown.

But that’s not how he wins. It’s not how he loves.

“Maybe,” he rasps, “that was his way of loving you.”

Yuzu’s tears burst anew, bitter with regret.

A deep ache sits in Shoma’s chest, rattling his ribs like a jarring fall. Yuzu bites down silent wails, open and caving like the deafening fall of an emptied temple. Shoma knows this grief. This is blank despair; it’s a fear of tomorrow. It’s Boston all over again.

But Shoma is no longer that boy in Boston, is he.

He rises and pulls Yuzu into his arms. Yuzu leans wet and limp and clawing for breath; anchoring him solid, Shoma looks out the window where Pyeongchang glitters like ice under rainbow lights.

The Olympics. Where dreams come to die, and new ones are born.

“We all did great today, didn’t we,” he murmurs. Yuzu curls his fingers on Shoma’s shirt.

“But tomorrow is another day, another challenge.” Shoma chews through the words. “It’s not over yet.”

Yuzu pulls away, sharp and betrayed, and Shoma tightens his hold. “No, listen to me.” When Yuzu hesitates, Shoma runs a steady hand down his back. “You’ll win,” he says, low and sure, “and Javi will win with you, because even though you hurt him, he won’t let you stand alone.”

“Shoma…”

“And you’ll tell him,” Shoma pushes on, “with the exact words he used on you. In a language he understands.”

“No.” Yuzu shakes his head, throwing soft hair into Shoma’s eyes. “I can’t. Shoma, I can’t.”

“You can.” Shoma pulls away and, holding Yuzu at arms’ length, turns them around. In silver light, Yuzu’s eyes are bright with terrible hope. “And I’ll be there with you, to watch you be brave and win everything you want.”

Yuzu’s eyes squeeze shut, and fresh tears fall. Shoma reaches out and gently smoothens knitted brows apart.

“Try again,” he whispers, “one more time.”

,

,

Javi speaks to Shoma, kind and earnest, and Shoma nods. It’s something that Javi doesn’t mind Shoma not understanding. Something he trusts Shoma to do regardless. Something that will put Javi’s mind at ease – something regarding Yuzu. Shoma would feel like he’s introduding, but can’t bring himself to feel bad about it when Javi pulls him into a hug that is obviously meant for Yuzu.

Shoma knows Yuzu. He knows that for all his despair back in Boston, he had still tried again. That for all his despair the previous night, he will not go down without a fight. So when Javi murmurs words that make Yuzu’s smile fall off his face, Shoma watches as promised.

“I think about quitting every day,” Yuzu had confessed one day when he found Shoma crying alone in the locker room. He had sat uncharacteristically still through Shoma’s angry sobs, arms limp at his sides. “I’m no different from you. The training is so hard, I couldn’t bear it if not for Javi.”

“But he rejected you,” Shoma had protested indignant, because he was fifteen and tact was for other people.

Yuzu had laughed, a strangled sound. “One day you’ll understand.” He had looked so old and wise back then. “You want to be with them even if it hurts. Even if your love is unrequited. Even if you can’t have a happy ending, the journey makes you better.”

Shoma watches Javi pull Yuzu into his arms, eyes dimming with tender grief, and thinks:  what do you know of unrequited love, you loudmouthed idiot.

Shoma doesn’t understand their shared language. He tells the press that he doesn’t care about other people, and that is not a lie. Knowing is exhausting. Being able to flit about like Yuzu, giving half his attention to everyone and absorbing it in return, is exhausting. He saves his energy for the few he has chosen, and gives them his all. So he knows what Javi has said to make Yuzu stumble in despair. He knows what words have at last tumbled out of Yuzu’s mouth that has Javi swallowing tears. He knows that look of courage as Javi whispers into Yuzu’s hair, the surrender in Yuzu’s body as he clings. He leaves them to it.

The two break up soon after, with cameras up to their nostrils. Yuzu flaps at his eyes in that ridiculous fashion, and he’s all laughter again. He’s finally, wholly happy, once again that boy with the world in his hands, except instead of chirping with joy he bows his head and lets tears flood away the years unspoken.

It’s an utterly happy ending. Shoma’s knee flares with white hot pain, and he clenches his jaw.

Thing is, he knows better than his brother what his body has been enduring. He doesn’t have the shape or the height for beautiful jumps, and he didn’t have the time to relearn them either. Because despite Yuzu’s denials, he’d always known that time was short. And he needed to catch up to Yuzu before he was touched by mortality, and if that meant torquing his knees and bruising his hips to land jumps that weren’t meant to be landed, well, so be it.

But now, mortality begins to look a lot like a second Olympic Gold Medal. Yuzu’s tale is finished, and Shoma is left marooning. He grasps Yuzu’s arm. “Wedding pose?”

Yuzu’s eyes widen, and he throws his head back to laugh like a donkey. “Shoma, I didn’t know you liked them too!” His fingers wrap around Shoma’s arm before letting go, too quick for the cameras to catch. “When we’re not on Olympic stage, confusing everyone who doesn’t know us,” he says with a conspiring cackle.

Shoma smiles, brighter than he had this entire season. It is enough.

“Why Turandot?” Yuzu had asked, playing with the sparkles on the shoulder of Shoma’s new costume. “I like this color on you,” he had said simply, making Shoma squirm with embarrassed pleasure, “but I thought you’d do something closer to Loco. Why back to this?”

Shoma had responded with a delivish smile. “You’ll have to guess.” Making Yuzu’s face wrinkle with confusion felt like another step closer to that breathless height, and he had laughed with open joy as Yuzu glided after him.

“Shoma, come back here! Who taught you to make those foxy eyes? Who has ruined my Shoma!”

 _Vincero_ , he had hummed, dodging Yuzu’s grabby hands. _I will win_.

He had done the math; he had watched every competitor and calculated backstage. If he hadn’t fallen, he would have won. But seeing Yuzu’s unbridled tears, he suddenly knows how far he is from true victory. And it’s exhilarating, knowing how far this road stretches before him, bright and expansive like unending ice. He feels fearless and itches to glide forward, wind raking his hair as he travels that blinding road toward the goal that glitters magnificent at its end.

Yuzu may be an idiot when it comes to love, but he is right about the journey making him better.

“You ready, Shoma?” Yuzu grips his shoulder.

Shoma looks at Yuzu, eyes shining with happy tears, and Javi, wearing a smile that is years in the making. And really, he can’t begrudge them this, because they deserve to be happy.

“I’m ready,” he says, and smiles, because it’s the truth.

Yuzu smacks him furiously in the back. “Come on, let’s go jump on that podium!”

Shoma skates out with a laugh.  One day, he’ll stand on the podium above Yuzu, and tell him all the things that he cannot say yet. One day.

And if not, well. He’s used to chasing after the back of Yuzu’s head all his life. He can take it for a while more.

He goes out onto the podium, and takes his place at Yuzu’s right-hand side.

,

,

**_The End_ **

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> We've come Full Circle!! Haha. I hope this final chapter adequately closes the loop and reveals Shoma's evolving wants as he grows through the chapters. I wanted to focus more on his growth as a character and the realizations that come with it, rather than to purely focus on pining. 
> 
> Thank you so much for reading, and leaving kudos and comments!


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